


reaching for you from the endless dream

by pyrophane



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, Light Pining, M/M, What To Do When Your Bandmate Might Just Be A Deity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-02 21:09:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16312769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/pseuds/pyrophane
Summary: “We don’t talk about the weather. Who even talks about the weather?”





	reaching for you from the endless dream

**Author's Note:**

> themed around bravado - lorde, which felt ideal for vaguely fraught idolverse (the only thing i ever write). this is set sometime nebulously in the near future, i am really just seeding for more 8jun china schedules...
> 
> thank you so much to the mods and to ecc for the handholding ♡

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think of days when this weather meant you  
were not so far away   the light changing  
so fast I believe I can see you turning a corner

\- _Sometimes the Way It Rains Reminds Me of You,_ Colleen J McElroy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s you!” Junhui’s voice floats across the room, detached from its source. “I thought I heard someone…”

Wonwoo pauses in the doorway, half a step behind crossing over from the kitchen to the living room. Junhui is draped upside-down on the couch in the buttery parallelogram of sunlight through the window, legs hooked over the back of the cushions, watching him curiously. Or at least that’s what Wonwoo thinks the expression is; it’s a little hard to parse, inverted.

“Just me,” Wonwoo says. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Junhui says, sing-song. He’s squinting a little, past the glare. “What are  _you_ doing?”

“Sometimes you just have to open the fridge, stare at what’s inside, and close it again,” Wonwoo says. “Someone ate the last nectarine.”

“It wasn’t me,” Junhui says immediately. “I would never willingly touch a fruit that wasn’t a lemon.”

“I know this,” Wonwoo says dryly. He nods at Junhui’s position. “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

He sticks out his tongue at Wonwoo. “It’s refreshing!”

“If you say so,” Wonwoo says.  

The sun shifts lower, light slatting over Junhui through the blinds in honeybee stripes. Junhui rights himself, tucking his legs underneath himself. Wonwoo is still hovering on the threshold between the rooms. It feels like encroachment on Junhui’s territory to walk in properly, as though his presence encompasses the entire room. At the start of the conversation, the blinds hadn’t been drawn; Wonwoo is almost certain of it.

“It’s going to rain later today,” Junhui says, apropos of nothing. “I can feel it. I think it’ll be nice, it hasn’t rained in a while.”

Soonyoung has a variety schedule in the afternoon, which is why Wonwoo knows the weather forecast is clear skies for the entire day.

In the distance, there is an uneasy exhale of thunder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_HYPOTHESIS: Wen Junhui Has Superpowers?????_

_THEORIES (LEAST TO MOST LIKELY):_

_\- X-Men was a documentary_

_\- some kind of god_

_\- coincidence (a lot of coincidence)_

_\- I’m going crazy_

_\- ???_

_EVIDENCE:_

Wonwoo considers himself a pretty rational person, but when it comes to Junhui there are just too many things he’s at a complete loss to rationalise. Junhui is a lightning rod for the inexplicable. Being around him in any capacity means getting up close and personal with the fact that he attracts improbabilities like a question from a mathematics textbook.

Exhibit A: two days ago there was a moth on the windowsill in the bathroom that everyone mostly pretended not to notice, because it was large and in an indeterminate state of aliveness and understandably, nobody wanted to risk it. Wonwoo was brushing his teeth and steadfastly not making eye contact with the moth in the mirror when Junhui wandered in, eyes closed, hair pushed off his forehead with one of the frog-eye headbands Joshua had bought Minghao as a joke, except then Minghao ended up using them in complete seriousness. Junhui patted blindly at the air around the sink, and Wonwoo picked up his toothbrush and handed it to him.

“Thanks, Wonu,” Junhui said, halfway to a yawn. He cracked open an eyelid, as if to ascertain that it really was Wonwoo he was speaking to, and thus satisfied shut his eyes again. Then they flew wide open. “What’s that?” He leaned in close to the mirror, eyes narrowed, before turning to inspect the moth on the windowsill.

Wonwoo made a noise roughly translating to _moth_ around a mouth full of bristle and foam.

Junhui frowned. “Is it dead?”

The moth had a shrivelled sort of look, like a dried leaf. It probably was dead. Wonwoo made another noise attempting to communicate this, and Junhui’s face fell. He reached out and touched one of the papery wings, and the moth didn’t stir. Definitely dead, then.

Junhui touched the other wing, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but it was as if a tracery of gold shimmered over the moth, concentric circles rippling out from the point of contact. It trembled. Shook itself out. Wonwoo stopped brushing his teeth. Junhui unlatched the window and the moth fluttered out. Light catching oddly on its filigree wings.

“So it was alive after all,” Junhui said brightly. An unfelt breeze through the open window ruffled his hair.

Wonwoo rinsed his mouth clean and turned on the tap. His fingers were icy; he could barely feel the water. “Guess I was wrong,” he said.

It’s a myriad of things like that, stacking up. Impossible not to notice the pattern. Junhui’s never mentioned it, though, so Wonwoo doesn’t either, for more reasons than one. They’re still ostensibly close, both on camera and off, and that obscures the truth, which is that Junhui is so openhearted it’s actually near-impossible to discern what he thinks, or what he wants. But surely if Junhui knew, he would tell—someone. Wonwoo doesn’t think he has the right to expect that person to be him—maybe at one point, though not at the moment—but Junhui has Minghao, Joshua, and the fact that he can’t name a third person is another indictment of how the overlap between their spheres, despite the fact that they literally live together, has shrunk, as of late.

Where he stands with Junhui feels like it’s constantly in flux, a transition state between definitive forms. They’ve been closer than this, in the past; they’ve also been more distant. Over time it averages out to some kind of equilibrium. Not quite comfortable, but enough that Wonwoo on instinct still looks for Junhui when he enters a room, and finds Junhui looking back. Habit probably isn’t enough to propel them through the rest of their contracts, though. And more than that: _I should know you. I want to know you._

The gap between how things should be and how things are twinges like an old bruise. He can see the ideal superimposed over the reality, vision gone out of focus. Everything that separates them stretching out underneath. Sometimes it seems impossible to bridge. Other times Wonwoo thinks if he reached out he could touch Junhui on the shoulder, the solid warmth of his skin bleeding through his shirt. All of it condensed down to just one boy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minghao wants to update his Instagram with more fashionably backlit photographs of himself, which means that he drags Mingyu out of the dorms at sunset to make full use of the artistically weakening evening half-light, and somehow Wonwoo ends up getting roped into tagging along too. Mingyu is partway through bundling them all out of the door when Junhui skids down the hallway, struggling to shove his right arm through the sleeve of his coat, and says, “I want to come too!”

So the four of them set out in the traditional hat-and-facemask undercover idol combination that probably makes them stand out even more, with the average height of their group and Minghao’s all-Vetements getup taken into account. Mingyu and Minghao split off to go find some aesthetically pleasing alleyways to use as backdrops, which leaves Wonwoo and Junhui together. Over the top of his black mask, Junhui’s eyes shine like lamps.

“What should we do?” Junhui asks.

“I don’t mind,” Wonwoo says. “What do you want to—”

“Oh!” Junhui says, pointing. “It’s a cat!”

Wonwoo turns his head. A comfortably large orange tabby slinks out from the shadows, regards them with a disinterested eye, then pads across the road in front of them, vanishing into the maw of a narrow passage between a hairdresser and a fried chicken restaurant, the bold neon lettering on the shopfront signs flickering fitfully. Wonwoo exchanges a look with Junhui. Obviously there’s only one thing to do.

The street is lit by a single lamp, illuminating a small wobbly circle of concrete, and the cat, which stares unblinkingly at them as they approach. Junhui crouches so he’s at eye level with the cat, pulls down his facemask, and meows. The cat meows back. Junhui meows again.

“Are you talking to the cat?” Wonwoo says, amused.

“Yeah,” Junhui says. “I’m giving it comeback spoilers so it can go tell all its cat friends. It’s free promotions!”

“Moon Joon,” Wonwoo says. He makes a frame with his forefingers and thumbs at right angles. “Professional cat whisperer, part-time idol.”

Junhui ducks his head to hide a smile. Without thinking about it Wonwoo takes out his phone and snaps an actual photograph. It’s a little blurry, light from the streetlamp leaking into the frame on one side. There’s the curve of Junhui's profile, the candid glint of his teeth, his hand half-hidden in the cat’s fur. It's not a very good picture, other than the fact that Junhui is in it. He uploads it onto the group Instagram anyway, captioned _two catsㅋㅋ_.

"Why are you just standing there?" Junhui calls.   

So Wonwoo takes the invitation and crouches down beside Junhui. He scratches lightly under the cat’s chin. Faintly he can hear the staticky buzz of a moth battering its wings against the streetlamp. In the washed-out oval of light, Junhui’s skin glows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“—are you listening to me?”

“Yes, yes, I’m listening,” Wonwoo says. He turns his head so he can squint up at Seungcheol with the minimum amount of effort required from his horizontal position on the ugly overstuffed couch Seungcheol has somehow managed to fit into their dorm room.

“Because you have that look, you know,” Seungcheol says accusingly. He spins around in his oversized chair, just to be dramatic.

“What look?”

“The one that tells me you’re not listening to me,” Seungcheol says. Wonwoo has no such look. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Wonwoo says. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m not thinking about anything.”

“Well, if there’s anything you want to talk to me about…” Seungcheol trails off hopefully, looking at Wonwoo with huge, expectant eyes.

Seungcheol loves giving advice, because he loves the idea of someone else relying on him for anything, and he loves being told that he’s right, and he hates it when people don’t indulge him on this. Wonwoo sighs and decides to indulge him. It’s just too much energy to deal with a sulky Seungcheol.  

“Hyung,” Wonwoo says, turning his head so he can stare up at the ceiling again. “Do you think it’s normal to—” he cuts himself off right before saying something ridiculous like _suspect your bandmate of having weird magic powers,_ and hastily redirects to the next thing his brain conjures up, which turns out to be, “—miss someone you see every day?”

He disguises a full-body cringe with a forced coughing fit. At least this question will activate the passionate romantic in Seungcheol, and as expected Seungcheol brightens immediately. “Is this about—”

“It’s a hypothetical,” Wonwoo interrupts.

“Well,” Seungcheol says, with an insufferable air of knowingness. “Do you talk to them?”

“Yes,” Wonwoo says. Frowns. “Depends what you mean by _talk_.”

“Like, a proper conversation. Not about the weather.”

“We don’t talk about the weather. Who even talks about the weather?”

“It’s a hypothetical,” Seungcheol says. “Anyway, the point is, just sitting in silence next to somebody doesn’t make a relationship. So it makes sense. You want to be closer, you have to talk.”

“Don’t you think the weather is so nice today, hyung?”

“Hey!” Seungcheol yelps. “I’m giving you free advice here! Do you want my help or not?”

Wonwoo turns to look at him. Seungcheol is radiating attentive earnestness at him with an intensity that Wonwoo is almost embarrassed by, though their general leader’s superhuman capacity for love should hardly be surprising after all these years. Wonwoo glances away again. “Okay,” he says. He swallows. “Let’s say it isn’t a hypothetical. Then what?”

There’s the sound of the chair scraping against the floor, and then a warm weight drapes itself across his back. Seungcheol tucks his chin over Wonwoo’s shoulder. “So talk to him,” he says. “I’m sure he misses you too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talking to Junhui is not as easy as it looks on paper when the parameters of their friendship largely consist of sitting in silence next to each other. They’re milling around backstage at Music Bank, waiting for their turn to perform, when Wonwoo figures there’s no time like the present and goes to look for Junhui.

The lights are metallic against the deep blue of Junhui’s hair. At this angle they leave Junhui’s face obscured, the fine slash of his mouth rendered unfamiliar by shadow. How strange it is, the thought that someone Wonwoo has known for so long could be unknown to him again. There’s a lot he doesn’t know, as he is rapidly discovering.

Wonwoo reaches out and taps him on the shoulder. A jolt, like static electricity discharging. If he’d been watching he wouldn’t have been surprised to see a physical spark jumping between the points of contact.

Junhui spins around, eyes wide. Stunned, sincere. “Yes?”

 _Nothing_ , he thinks. “I like your shirt,” he says.

The shirt is loose and black, stitched with silvery thread that glitters when the light hits it, and completely standard, as far as shirts go. Junhui’s brow furrows. “Thank you,” he says slowly. “Yours is nice, too.”

This conversation is off to a terrible start. “How are you feeling?”

“A little bit nervous,” Junhui admits. “I’ve never had this many lines before! But it’s—”

“Not to interrupt or anything,” Minghao interrupts, materialising by Junhui’s shoulder out of absolutely nowhere, “but Soonyoung-hyung is looking for you.”

Sometimes it really is your own best friend. Junhui grasps Minghao’s wrist, stalling him in place.

“Sorry,” Junhui says to Wonwoo. “I’ll see you after—well, I’ll see you on the stage.”

“See you,” Wonwoo echoes. Fifteen minutes before they’re due to perform was probably not the best time for any kind of meaningful conversation, anyway. The lights needle off Junhui’s hair like a constellation of tiny crystals, or raindrops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s one of the rare days in the post-promotion cycle downswing without a single schedule for any of them—except Jihoon, who still hasn’t emerged from his studio since he barricaded himself in there one-and-a-half days ago, but that’s a self-imposed situation. Seungcheol left with Joshua earlier in the morning to do something together that required him to spend an hour last night agonising over what to wear, while stubbornly pretending he wasn’t. That leaves Wonwoo without his usual gaming partner, so he’s out of ideas for what to spend his free day doing. He clicks around aimlessly on Dungreed for a while, then lies flat on the ground for a change in perspective, and also because his back hurts from being curled towards the screen for so long. The ceiling is just as boring and beige as he remembers it being, and offers no solutions.

By the time he’s made up his mind to go and find Junhui, he’s already on his feet, and by the time he’s in the hallway he’s already forgotten what he wanted to talk to Junhui about. But now that he’s put in the effort of leaving the room, he might as well follow things through.

Junhui and Minghao are preparing to fly back to China tomorrow to film for Happy Camp, which is, as Wonwoo understands, a pretty big deal, so he guesses Junhui is probably packing last-minute. He makes his way to Junhui’s dorm, opens the door, and finds Minghao, crouched over Junhui’s half-packed luggage and clutching a handful of rocks.

If Wonwoo thought he had a chance of understanding any reason Minghao might give, he would have asked what he was doing. As it is, he just stares at Minghao, and Minghao stares right back at him. After an excruciatingly long moment of reciprocal staring, Minghao seems to make the mental equivalent of a shrug, and turns his focus back to his task in a clear dismissal.

Wonwoo doesn’t leave. Minghao keeps tucking tiny violet and black crystals into the corners of Junhui’s suitcase, between the folded layers of clothing. When he’s done he rocks back on his heels and straightens up.

“He gets nervous,” Minghao says, finally.

“I see,” Wonwoo says, though he doesn’t really.

“Fairy quartz,” Minghao says. “And black tourmaline. Charged for a day under the sun and the full moon.”

There’s an awful lot both of them aren’t saying. Junhui isn’t in the room, but his phantom presence looms something almost tangible. “And it… helps?”

“I do what I can,” Minghao says. His eyes are sharp. Thoughtful, rather than cutting. “The rest is up to him.”

“That’s… nice of you,” Wonwoo says.

He’s pretty sure they hadn’t always been this close. Wonders idly what had shifted between them, or if it has only been an observational oversight on his part all this time. Junhui is easy to love, after all, and Minghao’s devotion is unmatchably resolute once won.

“I suppose I don’t need to ask,” Wonwoo says. “About the weather.”

“Ask me anyway.”

“Does he know?”

Minghao snorts. “It’s impossible to tell, with Jun-hyung. Like I said. I just do what I can.”

There is another silence as Wonwoo tries to think of an appropriate response to this. Minghao takes pity on him.

“Were you looking for him?”

“Oh,” Wonwoo says. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.”

“He said he was going to find Jeonghan-hyung,” Minghao says. “Check his room?”

So one of his bandmates is a witch, which is not as surprising as it should be considering that another has some kind of reality warping magic. This is fine. If it turns out Soonyoung is a minor deity of luck or something as well, then that’s just practically to be expected. Maybe his entire band is secretly superpowered and none of them bothered to tell him.

In the end Wonwoo finds Junhui in the kitchen, contemplating the fridge door with a half-eaten soy egg in his hand. The only details of interest about the fridge are the collection of semi-passive-aggressive notes from Mingyu regarding grocery restocking pinned to the front with Seungkwan’s cheery sunflower-shaped magnets, and an impressive dent from the time Soonyoung got his hands on a mechatronic Yu-Gi-Oh! duel disk and accidentally launched the deck holder into the freezer door, but neither of those are new, or really warrant any kind of close inspection.

“Are you… just eating that cold?”

“I was hungry,” Junhui says. He stuffs the rest of the egg into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Do you want one? There’s like, three left. I made this batch on Friday but it’s already nearly all gone…”

“I’m good, thanks,” Wonwoo says. “Shouldn’t you be packing?”

“I’m thinking,” comes the reply.

“About?”

“How we’re running out of eggs,” Junhui says. “Fresh, not just braised. Also that Mingyu’s handwriting is very messy in these notes!”

Mingyu’s handwriting, no matter how messy, is still more legible than Junhui’s on a good day. Wonwoo elects not to raise this. “Well, we’re not out of everything, right, what’s in here,” he says, reaching out to tug the fridge door open, and an avalanche of nectarines explodes out. Wonwoo swears and jumps back as nectarines tumble down and start rolling across the kitchen floor. There are nectarines crammed into every available square inch of storage, wedged between the milk bottles, on top of the wrapped dishes of leftovers from last night’s dinner, overflowing out of egg cartons.

He stares at the open fridge, still spilling nectarines, then at Junhui, who looks as stunned as a pigeon that’s flown headfirst into a classroom window. They may be running out of eggs, but they apparently have enough nectarines to last them through a nuclear winter and then some.

“You could have mentioned the nectarine situation,” Wonwoo says mildly. A nectarine knocks against his ankle, and then another. “Did Soonyoung pass another old lady trying to offload a lifetime’s supply of fruit onto him or something? I told him last time, she was probably putting a hex on him…”

“What? Oh, I don’t… I guess?” Junhui’s gaze is distant. “Soonyoung…”

“Well, I want to know—how did you even get that egg out?”

“Would you believe me,” Junhui says slowly, “if I said that the fridge wasn’t like this five minutes ago?”

“Yes,” Wonwoo says honestly. Materialising warehouse quantities of fruit out of thin air is not even the weirdest Junhui-adjacent thing that has happened in recent memory.

Surprise crosses Junhui’s face, then tentative delight. “I didn’t think you’d accept that easily,” Junhui says.

“I like to surprise,” Wonwoo jokes. It falls flat, even for him.

Junhui opens his mouth, then closes it again. The silence prolongs itself, until the fridge beeps shrilly, demanding to be shut.

“We should clean this up,” Wonwoo says, gesturing uselessly at the mess of nectarines, and Junhui blinks, expression sharpening into focus. Always quick to respond once given direction.

In high school Wonwoo remembers learning about voltage, the difference in electric potential between two points, capable of driving a current. The teacher had compared it to a large boulder at the top of a hill, balanced on the brink of falling. That’s actually the extent of his memory of secondary level physics, but the image is a striking one. Potential without action. And of course it’s Junhui with this incredible barely-tapped reservoir of power that could probably literally unmake the world, Junhui who lives in his own heart, who uses the ability Wonwoo still isn’t sure Junhui knows he possesses to make nectarines out of thin air and resurrect moths and talk to cats. Why wouldn’t the world bend around Junhui’s whims? Why wouldn’t it adjust itself to accommodate him more perfectly?

The universe itself is in love with Junhui. Wonwoo looks at him, surrounded by improbable nectarines in the small cone of light flung by the open fridge, and understands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halfway through unpacking his suitcase, Junhui stands up and announces, “I’m going for a walk.”

“I’ll come with you,” Wonwoo says. He’s the only one in the living room, anyway. Junhui beams.

They head, obliquely, towards the river, cutting through a park. Junhui absently prods at a rock on the path with his foot; Wonwoo eyes it warily in case it starts levitating or something, but for all intents and purposes it appears to remain an ordinary rock bound by the laws of physics.

“The weather’s nice today,” Wonwoo says. It’s been clear and dry all week, spring transitioning to summer, the grass starting to scorch yellow.

“It is,” Junhui agrees.

“How was filming?”

“Good,” Junhui says vaguely.  “It’s always good to go home. Though Minghao made me eat _vegetables._ ” He pulls a face.

Wonwoo hums. “Terrible of him,” he says.

“Terrible!” Junhui repeats. He slides a sideways glance at Wonwoo. “Will you… will you watch it? The broadcast? You don’t have to, or anything! I would just—it would make me happy. If you did.”

“Then I will,” Wonwoo says.

Junhui grins, then sneezes. In the periphery of Wonwoo’s vision a couple of falling leaves twist themselves into dragonflies and flutter away. The flight back from China had only landed earlier in the morning but Junhui doesn’t look tired at all, emanating energy without any particular focus or direction, the way a candle issues heat just by virtue of being lit. All practical consequences secondary, incidental, a coincidence of existence.

“Junnie,” Wonwoo starts. “Do you think—”

“Nope!” Junhui says cheerfully. He stops. “Oh, wait, is this a confession?”

Wonwoo splutters. “Is this a _—excuse_ me?”

“Never mind,” Junhui says breezily, resuming his steps. “It makes sense in—never mind, what were you saying?”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Wonwoo says faintly.

Junhui is silent for a while. “I wish you would tell me, though. Even if it’s nothing.”

“It isn’t really worth hearing.”

The wide brushstroke of the river is in view when Junhui speaks again. “Sometimes,” he says, “I think I really just don’t get you at all. Or—I don’t know if it’s okay for me to be saying this, but I guess… more that it’s hard for me to tell what you’re thinking! About me, or about anything. So that’s why I want to you to tell me things. I want to be that person for you.”

“That’s funny,” Wonwoo says. “Well—it’s not _funny_ , but—I would’ve said the same for you.”

“Really?” Junhui sticks his hands in his pockets. “I feel like you know me pretty well, though. You’re that person for me, you know.”

Wonwoo nearly stumbles. “What? I can barely ever tell what you’re thinking…”

“So we’re both just confused by each other,” Junhui says, pivoting to face Wonwoo. He sounds strangely pleased by this. “That’s kind of nice, don’t you think?”

“I _really_ can’t tell what you’re thinking there.”

“Just that it means one day we won’t be,” Junhui says. He takes a step backwards, into the light. Shades his eyes and flashes all of his teeth. “I like what we have now, anyway. I don’t mind waiting.”

There is so much light he’s practically swimming in it, a deluge of brightness so profuse it seems near obscene. He looks lit up from within, gilded. Something cinematic about the way the sun hits his profile that Wonwoo doesn’t have the language to describe.

“I don’t mind either,” Wonwoo says. He’s surprised by how much he means it.

“Then we’re fine, aren’t we?”

Wonwoo glances back over his shoulder. The path Junhui tread is marked out by footprint-shaped patches of spring-growth green, startling against the rest of the grass.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. “We’re good.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Taipei leg of the world tour opens to ominously charcoal skies, though the rain holds off until encore stage. By the time they get back to the hotel it’s well and truly storming. The view of the city through the glass of the window smeared out into a corona of light. Wonwoo tugs at a curtain half-heartedly and finds himself too tired to reach for the one on the other side.

Concerts are always draining, once the adrenaline burns off. Being an idol is really just a game of managing exhaustion. Staving it off, compacting it down. You love something enough to push yourself to the limit the first time, and it doesn’t matter whether the feeling changes, after that. The sunk cost keeps you there. There are other things, too, muscle memory and learned love; it’s not an exact science. Wonwoo prefers not to think too hard about this part.

The sound of the shower cuts off, and minutes later Junhui sticks his head out of the bathroom door, towel dangling around his neck. “Is it still storming?”

“Mmhm,” Wonwoo says.

“I thought it wasn’t supposed to rain today,” Junhui says, walking across the room and dropping onto the armchair by the window. He tugs idly at the ends of the towel.

“I don’t know,” Wonwoo says. “I didn’t check the weather.”

“I didn’t either,” Junhui says. “Do you think it’ll last through the night?”

Controlling the weather definitely falls within the purview of Junhui’s powers, so really it depends on whether or not Junhui wants it to. “Seems pretty heavy,” Wonwoo says. “Maybe.”

He’s barely finished speaking when there’s a crackling noise overhead, and then every light bulb fizzles out, leaving them in the darkness.

“Wow,” Wonwoo says tonelessly. He blinks as his eyes adjust to the sudden lack of light.

The blurry shape of Junhui unfolds from the chair. “Should we, um, call housekeeping…?”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “Let’s do it tomorrow. It’s not like we need the light now, anyway… at least it saved us from having to physically hit the switch, right…”

“Oh… I guess,” Junhui says.

A low rumble of thunder. For a brief moment Junhui is lit up bone white in a flash of lightning. Framed by the window he looks like the breath has been startled out of him, wide-eyed and young in a strangely ageless way. Sometimes Junhui doesn’t seem to belong to any era, as if he has always existed and will continue existing indefinitely, even though the better part of Junhui’s childhood, proof that he _is_ determinate, is readily available on film record.

Junhui was practically raised by the industry. The stage lying close enough to the bone it would be indistinguishable from it. He leaves his intensity on the stage but glimpses of it show through in odd moments, seamlessness without ease. It’s hard for Wonwoo to understand, but most things about Junhui are. Still, the fact that they managed to wordlessly negotiate the loose sketch of whatever lies between them regardless has to count for _something_.

“I was thinking,” Junhui says, sitting down again and curling up on the seat. He settles against the arm of the sofa. Closes his eyes.

“About?” Wonwoo prompts, when it becomes clear Junhui doesn’t plan to elaborate on this.

Junhui hums. “It’s nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to say it.”

When Wonwoo chances a look back at Junhui, he’s lifted an eyelid, is watching him with an intent Wonwoo can’t parse, cheek pillowed on his forearms. In the dim light his single visible iris gleams almost gold, lamplike. For some reason the weight of it feels heavier than the hundredfold eyes of the audience when he’s up on stage, though Junhui is only one person, and familiar to him besides. Isn’t he? Meeting Junhui’s gaze head-on is like trying to bring two of the same magnet poles close together, but once he’s done it he finds himself unable to look away, or even breathe. The shadows dark and dense, hemming them in. Proximity bordering on claustrophobia.

“Junnie,” Wonwoo says, low and even, and something intangible breaks clean.

Junhui smiles. Beyond the window, the rain peters out, lightening into a feathery drizzle, and then nothing at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s this recurring dream Wonwoo has been having, lately. He’s on the Saitama stage from the Japan concerts—or sometimes the Singapore one—for rehearsal, running through Don’t Wanna Cry, when Junhui’s hands turn into birds halfway through the second chorus and fly off. Of course Wonwoo has to help him chase them down, because Junhui is in the performance unit and needs his hands. So they’re running out of the stadium after the hand-birds, and all the while Junhui is insisting that it’s fine, he can handle things himself, except he doesn’t actually have hands, which means that Wonwoo is not inclined to believe him on this one. Then Wonwoo says something extraordinarily stupid like _your eyebrows look like seagulls,_ and Junhui laughs, eyes shining like copper coins, and says, _everything that’s lost will come back eventually._

Naturally, that’s when Wonwoo wakes up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Let’s go swimming,” Junhui says.

Wonwoo glances up from his book. Junhui’s looking at him expectantly, face caught in the crescent of light cast by his phone screen, forgotten in his lap.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Wonwoo points out.

“So?”

“It’ll be cold,” Wonwoo says, already setting his book down and taking off his glasses in resignation. Junhui jumps to his feet in glee. “Also, shouldn’t the pool be closed?”

Junhui scoffs. “Just because it’s closed doesn’t mean it has to stay that way,” he says.

The rooftop pool is, in fact, closed, according to the sign at the entrance listing its operational hours as 6 AM to 11 PM, but Junhui pays this no heed. He unlatches the pool gate, and it swings open silently, accepting the trespass. Wonwoo follows him in.

The water is luminous, a clear chlorinated blue suffused with the glow from the lights recessed into the pool walls, the tiled floor sloping gently downwards. It’s only after Junhui has slipped into the pool fully dressed that Wonwoo realises neither of them have remembered to bring towels. But that’s a problem he can deal with later; Junhui’s stubborn insistence on anchoring himself to the present is proving infectious.

When he enters the water it’s cold enough to shock any last vestiges of drowsiness from his system. Almost immediately he loses feeling in the tips of his fingers. He grits his teeth and starts treading water towards the middle of the pool.

Junhui paddles towards him. His shirt billows out as he moves, a pale sliver of skin at his waist flashing into visibility. “Isn’t this nice!” he says, beaming. The last time he said those words with that expression he was shoving half a lemon into his mouth while Seokmin and Hansol looked on in horrified fascination.

“I think I’m freezing to death,” Wonwoo says.

“So move around,” Junhui says. He flicks water at Wonwoo, who can’t muster up the energy to flinch. “Warm up!”

It doesn’t take too long to adjust to the temperature. Wonwoo does a few circuits of the pool while Junhui splashes around in the deep end, doing lazy somersaults and generally submerging himself for longer than the human lung capacity should be able to sustain. The light filters strangely through the water, shimmering and indistinct. Junhui keeps his eyes open, even when the water seams over the top of his head, and the whites of his eyes gleam blueish.

Eventually Wonwoo pulls himself out of the pool at the shallow end to sit on its edge, shivering as the night air hits his damp skin. Moments later, Junhui follows suit, and an unseasonably warm breeze ruffles over the both of them; Wonwoo is almost embarrassed by the obviousness of the gesture, but grateful nonetheless.

“Pretty,” Junhui says, angling his head away from Wonwoo to look at the minefield of city lights stretching out beyond the edge of the rooftop.  

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says. He isn’t looking at the city. “The moon’s out.” He has no idea if it is.

Junhui leans back a little, tips his head up. He hums. “Ahh, it’s nearly full,” he says. The universe is on Wonwoo’s side today, it seems. “Maybe tomorrow, I think…” He lifts an arm, extends a finger, and Wonwoo’s eyes trace the vector of it towards the pale moon floating above them. Just a sliver away from completeness. It aches a little, the way a sore tooth does, or the memory of one.

Water sloshes against the sides of the pool. “Are we coming up here again, then?”

“ _We_ , you said,” Junhui says. He looks at Wonwoo cautiously. “Will you come with me?”

“Sure,” Wonwoo says. “Full moon watching party for two.”

“You don’t have to,” Junhui says. “I don’t… it’s okay with me! If you don’t want to, I mean.”

“Stop doing that,” Wonwoo says, abruptly irritated at nothing in particular.

Junhui’s eyes close and open again, a movement too slow to be classified as a blink. “Doing what?”

“Asking,” Wonwoo says, “for something, and then playing it off. You should ask for more. You don’t—you shouldn’t have to apologise for it.”

“Oh,” Junhui says. He offers Wonwoo a lopsided smile. “Then this is me asking. No takebacks.”

The poolside lamp flickers, sickly fluorescent light stuttering over Junhui in irregular intervals. It’s as if Wonwoo is still looking at him from underwater, all hazy and washed out, almost overexposed. Like he could dissolve away between breaths, something caught in the wind.

“What _I_ want,” Wonwoo says, testing the strange heft of the word in his mouth. _Whatever makes you happy._ “If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.” Too brusque. He winces. “That’s not what I meant. It’s just—of course I want to. You’re—important to me.”

The wind picks up around them. Junhui’s hair flares out into a soft halo, as if in slow motion. Again, that startled birdlike expression, before the curve of his mouth relaxes.

“You’re important to me too,” Junhui says. His eyes bright with intent. That self that comes out on stage, recontextualised in the neon dark.

It’s a feeling that sinks its hooks between Wonwoo’s shoulderblades and pulls. All the words stopper up in his throat like a dammed river, and then disappear altogether. Water running clear. He breathes out. In the dark, his fingers find Junhui’s, or the other way around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a garden behind the hotel, semi-secluded by a latticed screen effusive with climbing roses. Enough to give at least the illusion of privacy. Wonwoo digs a knuckle into his eyes, blinking away the sunspots as he trudges across the grass towards Junhui, who stands at the point where the sandstone-paved paths secant to the circular flowerbeds converge. His back crisscrossed with light as the sun tips upward. All of him almost preternaturally motionless, like the garden took root around him, like he’s part of it.

He’s gazing into space, unfocused, almost dreamy. Every flower tilts towards him like he’s the conductor of some grand vegetal orchestra. It seems impossible that Junhui hasn’t noticed, and yet he gives no indication that he has.

“Junnie,” Wonwoo says, when he’s near enough to be heard.

Junhui pivots, glances up at Wonwoo, eyes bright, and the flowers follow suit. Hundreds of petals turning to face him. Sun overhead, kicking lazily at the shadows. And in the middle of it all there’s Junhui, centre of the universe. “Hmm?”

Wonwoo smiles and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s just you.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come drop by my twitter [@juncheolsoo](https://twitter.com/juncheolsoo) or my cc [@inheritance](https://curiouscat.me/inheritance)!!


End file.
